Okay, first I'd like to say that my suggestion to get rid of /givemoney was not because I hate the fact that there are pirates in the game, rather what I don't like is the way that piracy is practiced. I realize that Piracy is very diffacult and not very profitable. Most of the people who didn't like my idea were (suprise) pirates who believe that my idea would cut into their already meager profits (my heart bleeds for you guys). There is a solution that I think might be palatable to all parties.

If the price for the higher ticket items were to be raised, but the profit margins were reduced, than a load of cargo would be a lot more valuable than it is now. If say food could be bought at say 5c at one station and sold at 10c at another, this would be a profit of 100%, but only 5c per ton. If Luxuries cost 100,000c a ton, but could be sold for 101,000 per ton, than this would be a profit margin of 1%, but at 1000c per ton would be more profit ber ton than food. The bennefit of this would be if someone could get their hands on 48 tonnes of luxuries, than they would make 4,800,000c on a good pirating run.

Now I'm not saying that these specific numbers should be used, but rather the concept of higher ticket items and lower profit margins would make pirating more profitable and make traders feel less like ATMs in space. It would also make pirates target higher licenced traders as they would be more likely to be carying more valuable cargo. Also I think some kind of scanner that would allow a pirate to see what a ships cargo is would be in order (High combat/High Corvus standing).

One side issue I'd also like to address is the notion that traders will fight to the death rather than drop cargo because they are on a trade mission and would loose faction points if they can't complete the mission. The only trade mission that this is true of is the deliver prototype mision (which the smart trader would use a Centurian III to perform anyway), all of the other missions can still be completed by procuring more of whatever it was they were delivering. So I do think that some traders would drop cargo (there will always be the over my dead body types).

And again I'm not saying that /givemoney should be done away with, but that it is only allowable in stations. I don't even think both parties should have to be there, you could give money to a player while you were at a station and the other player could recieve it immediatly. I just think that this would add a little more depth and realism to the game.

a smart trader would do a prototypemission in an all purpose trader, like the marauder or an atlas.

Namely you invest 1 cu in the prototype and invest the other available in hauling cargo just for profit.

Anyway, I might consider that to be ok, but then only for higher level items.

Meaning for the low level items you should easilly make a profit of 300 - 600%, while for the higher ones you might only get away with a profit of 30% or 15% or 10%

Don't forget however roach, that the investment should still be valuable for unsafe routes. Since in the case of your 100k a unit one, you will never see me trade them outside of nationspace... since it would make me a pauper from a millionair in a split second.

cheers

well, of course you wouldn't do it.

But someone might. If the payoff was just high enough.

Of course, as martin said. If such cargo existed. We wouldn't ask.
We'd just blow you up.

Why on EARTH, would I say "give me your cargo or I'll blow you up",
when I can say nothing and get the cargo AND a kill?

because a pirate is there for the cargo not for the kill.

if your soleintent is the kill and the cargo is just a bonus then your not a pirate but just a pk-er.

simple as that.

cheers

No, the sole purpose would NOT be the kill. I would be after your cargo. And the easiest way to do that would be to kill you.

Renegade, do you realize that you have never once given any ground to your detractors? I mean, I had no idea you were always right, good for you.

A pirate does not care about the method to procure cargo as long as he gets the cargo.

If I spot a vulture boosting up to me, known to be a pirate agaisnt which I know I hav eno chance and asks me to drop or when there is timepressure from a mission, I will drop a couple of items for him to pick up. And boost away for the rest. He pirated me, I live.

If I however know that there is a chance that I will win the fight, then I will fight, if I loose then congrats to the pirate, if I win then congrats to me.

Thats the way I see pirating. Being fun for both sides in stead of only the person willing to force his fun on someone else.

Your view of pirating is kill and ask questions later, that in my eyes is not pirating just pk-ing, since you don't care about the cargo, you just want your kill. Otherwise you would offer them another option. And im sure that just pressing a hotkey to release a bind to ask drop x amount of cargo or be killed is that hard to do... With x beiong the number of cargo you can haul in 1 trip.

But at the moment you offer them the option of /givemoney just because you know that you get a lot of money for practicaly no work. Just let a little bind fly...

And shape, I do not consider myself to be correct, I just know what I find fun, and pk-ing is in my eyes not fun. Im just vocal about it that is all, just liike you are vocal about your opinion. But it is and stays only an opinion.

However you did agree that your version(in anothe rthread) is not pirating but pk-ing, so my constant remarks seem to me to be valid.

Now I only nee to know if people or the devs consider pk-ing to be part of the game, I just know/remember how hard these actions harmed the community and the retentionrate of the bulk of the newbies attracted by the RPG-flag. And this alone is what my entire fight agaisnt 'pirating' as you call it has always been against. Not agaisnt losing the cargo but just the point of prefering the kill above the cargo (so seeing the cargo as the extra on top of the kill, in stead of the reverse).

cheers

I reckon this (original post) is a good idea - in fact i suggested pretty much the same thing in the original thread you made. If we increased the buy and sell values of all cargo to make it worth having, and maybe increased the average profits slightly to account for the increased investment risk - we'd have actual pirating going on, and it might even be worth the time to do things like hire escorts because of the higher investments and profits - it would be a good idea to have a sign up system for this to go with the price increases.

Besides, everyone is always complaining about how its too easy to make a bundle of money and then have nothing to spend it on - if there's increased risk of pirating and losing money in investments, these hoards of cash will be slightly harder to amass, and again it might be an idea to hire escorts.

soulless, the problem with escorts is that you need to make the total investment smaller and therefore the profit bigger then running your big bulk trader in safe spots otherwise there is no incentive to do so.

Meaning if I can trade in my centaur 48 cu of 1 thing and sell them 4 hops futher still in itani nationspace for a cool 50% profit, you will need to make to cover the expenses of these escorts this 50% at least 100% depedning on the beginningprice of the cargogoods.

Not to mention that sometimes it is best to go immediately for the big bulk trader and blow him up, although it is probably easier stated then done :D

One would think that pirates would prefer to extort money and let their victims survive because 1) it decreases risk to them and potential repair costs to their ship (oh yeah... no repair costs here), 2) they can hit the trader on the return trip too, 3) a dead player is likely to come back with a combat ship next time, 4) if you cost your victim a bunch of money, then they don't have it to give to you.

I'm just waiting for the pirates to start offering 'protection' money.

"Pay me 20000c and I'll make sure you don't meet with an unfortunate accident on your way to your destination...."

Then you escort them there and back (for another 20000c).

It would be nice if you could scan a ship and see what was in it's cargo. Ships carrying ore might not be worth bothering with. Maybe a small slot 'cargo scanner' or something.

furious,

imagine flying through pirateproperty and getting protected by a pirate, then seeing icarus enter the sector :D

I think youll not be protected for long :D

@Renegade:

"A pirate does not care about the method to procure cargo as long as he gets the cargo."

are you referring to actual in-game VO pirates, or simply your idea of how pirates should behave?

i don't think that anyone can dispute that real VO pirates have found it more entertaining and profitable to ask for money rather than asking for cargo. if you want this behavior to change, you need to think of ways to make the cargo worth more to the pirate than straight cash. this is what Roach is trying to do; personally, i don't think it's a good idea because the pirates (as they have stated) will just start shooting first and picking up cargo later.

come to think of it, here's an idea: what if most of a ship's cargo were destroyed by the ship's explosion? for example, a trader is carrying 10 units of cargo. a pirate blows up the trader. as things currently stand, the pirate can now pick up 10 units of cargo. what if the trader's wreckage only contained 1 or 2 units of cargo? this would give the pirate a significant incentive to leave the trader alive.

combine this with much higher prices per unit of trade good, and now the pirate stands to make considerably more money by letting the trader escape alive (and perhaps even with some of his cargo).

pirates? does this sound right?

I'm no pie rat but I do like your idea of having the loot destroyed slightly. In fact that a great idea!!! and solves the problem quite elegantly. I'm all for this, and I don't thing this would take up a lot of dev time either. Perhaps change a few (not all) crates to scrapmetal instead of what they were carrying.